out and grabbed him by the ankles. Not a rope
really, a green something, and there were others around his arms, his
chest, his hips, wrapping him in their sticky green embrace. The
Guardians! He tried to cry out but one of the verdant fronds enveloped
his throat so tightly he could not utter a sound. The innocent green
things of the Grove were vigilant guardians indeed. They seemed to be
merely holding him immobile, but Tyndall realized with sick horror that
their pressure was increasing, so little at a time, but so steadily.

And something was happening out there in the sunlight too. The creature
had convulsively grasped the branch of a bush and was clinging weakly to
it, great tremors wracking its body. It seemed to be struggling,
suffering, dying ... even as he was. In his agony, Tyndall laughed.

"A Time! A Time!" The voice came from the patio. Tyndall saw Bheel throw
himself face down on the floor, covering his eyes with his hands. He
heard the cry echoed within the palace, and then like a mighty roar
outside in the city. And then there was silence, silence broken only by
the sound of his own breathing as he dragged his tortured lungs across
his shattered ribs.

He saw the Bug give a great heave, and then it seemed to split open, the
entire skin splitting in a dozen places and a hand ... A HAND reached
from within that dying hulk and grasped the bush to which it clung. A
white slender hand on a fragile wrist, and then the arm was free, a
woman's arm, a beautiful arm.

Tyndall began, dimly, and too late, to understand.

A leg kicked free ... the slender ankle ... the amply fleshed thigh.

Tyndall clung to consciousness doggedly. The Guardian was crushing the
last dregs of life out of him now, and even the pain seemed to recede.
His mind was very, very clear. So that was it. A word once heard in a
long forgotten classroom, and then the scientists of the expedition.
Metamorphosis ... he had meant to ask them what ... but he remembered
now ... what it meant. A passing from one form into another.... Had he
failed a biology test once because he didn't know what metamorphosis
meant ... dimly ... dimly ... he saw ...

The last thing Tyndall ever saw was the Priestess Lhyreesa as she
stepped out of the empty hulk, kicking it away with a disdainful toe.
Breathless from her ordeal, she sank to the grass, her breasts heaving
with exhaustion.

She sat there for a few minutes in the sunlight, then she tossed her
head a